You will say:
‘Women adorn themselves in order to be attractive to the other sex.’
This is true, but only to a limited extent. And men also adorn
themselves in order to be attractive to the other sex. Moreover, a
woman who has found the man of her desire, and is utterly satisfied
therewith, will still go on adorning herself, even though the man in
question has made it quite clear that she would attract him just as
strongly in a sack as in a Poiret gown. Further, some fashions do
not attract; they excite ridicule rather than admiration; yet they
are persisted in. And women of the classes who do not and cannot
cultivate fashionableness succeed at least as well as the other woman
in attracting men, even when these men by reason of laborious lives
have almost no leisure for dalliance. The truth is that the competition
among women for men is chiefly a legend--not wholly. There are more
women than men, but not many more. Women want marriage more than
men want marriage, but not much more. Competition is by no means so
fierce that women have to perform prodigies of self-ornamentation
in order to inveigle a fellow-creature so simple that he worries
about the tint of his own necktie and socks; and the idea of such a
phenomenon is derogatory to women. After all, nature has the business
of sex-attraction in hand, and she is not dependent on fashions. Long
before fashions had been evolved she managed it precisely as well as
she manages it to-day. She relies, not upon textile stuffs, but upon
the stuff that dreams are made on; namely, glances, gestures, actions,
and speech.
The authentic major explanation of the expensive fashionableness of
women must be sought in another direction. As usual, men are at the
bottom of the affair. When woman gloriously dresses herself up to go
out, she does so in order to prove to the world something which man
wants to be proved to the world. In old days the two attributes which
man held in the highest esteem were wealth and idleness. To be poor was
shameful, and to work for a living was shameful. Man, therefore, had to
demonstrate publicly that he was neither needy nor industrious. One of
the best methods of demonstration was costume, and the costume of the
successful man in those days was very expensive, and so gorgeous and
delicate as to make toil impossible for him.
The time came when man ceased to be proud of his own idleness, and his
costume altered accordingly. Then the duty of demonstrating wealth
and idleness by means of costume fell on woman. Man could not do
the demonstration on his own person--he was too busy--and hence he
employed the lady to be expensive on his behalf. Such was her function,
and still is her function. The Rue de la Paix is based firmly on the
distant past. Assuredly long years will elapse before feminine costume
ceases to be used as a demonstration that man possesses the attributes
that are most admired. Estates demonstrate the possession of those
attributes; bonds demonstrate the possession of those attributes. But
estates are a fixture, and bonds are kept in a safe. Costume walks
about; your wife can take it to the seaside with her; the world cannot
help noticing it; and it has the further advantage of ministering to
the senses.
The proofs of the substantial correctness of this explanation of
women’s dress are innumerable. Perhaps the principal proof is that the
very man who grumbles at fashionableness in women would be the first to
complain if his wife started to ignore fashion and to dress merely for
comfort, utility, and charm. No man objects to the inexpensiveness of
his wife’s clothes, but every man objects to them looking inexpensive.
The advertised lure of a blouse marked one pound at a sale is that it
has the air of a blouse costing two pounds. Suppose a rich man sees
a delightful typewriting young woman walking down the street, falls
in love with her, and marries her. Now, although the clothes in which
he saw her suited her admirably in every way, and although she has
simple tastes, and more elaborate clothes do not suit her so well, the
first thing she has to do on marriage is to alter her style of dress
for a more expensive style. Otherwise the man will say: ‘I don’t want
my wife to look like a clerk.’ In other words: ‘I insist on my wife
demonstrating to the universe that I possess wealth and can afford
to keep her idle on my behalf.’ Even in small provincial towns where
personal adornment is theoretically discouraged, and where people
preach the entirely false maxim that externals don’t matter--even there
the theory holds good. The middle-class wife will have her sealskin
coat before she has her automobile. Fur coats are detestable garments
to walk in, but real sealskin is a symbol which cannot be denied.
And it is as important that that costume should prove idleness as that
it should prove wealth. Hence the fragility of extremely fashionable
costumes, and their unpracticalness. The fashionable costume must be
of such a nature that the least touch of the workaday world will ruin
it; and it must go beyond this--it must be of such a nature that the
wearer is actually prevented by it from her full and proper activity.
An unconsidered movement would rip it to pieces. Rich Chinese males
till recently kept their finger-nails so long that it was impossible
for them to use their hands, and they maimed females so that they could
not walk. Both sexes were thus rendered helpless, and the ability
to be futile was proved like a problem of Euclid. We laugh at that.
Crinolines were admirably designed to hinder honest work. And we laugh
at crinolines too. But we still have the corset, though the corset is
not the homicidal contrivance it once was. And we have the high-heeled
shoe, higher than ever. You say: ‘But women have high heels to increase
their apparent height.’ Not a bit! All women whose business it is to
demonstrate idleness to the universe wear high heels, because high
heels are a clear presumption that the wearer is not obliged really
to exert herself. If a woman with a rich husband is so inordinately
tall that she is ashamed of her height, she will wear high heels to
prove that her husband is rich. And, not to be outdone, the delightful
typewriting girl walking down the street at 8.30 A.M. will
also wear high heels--and each hurried step she takes is a miracle of
balance, pluck, and endurance. Life is marvellous.